Hybrid cell phone/PDA coming to US, Japan

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By Martyn Williams

(IDG) -- A South Korean company says it is planning to put its hybrid cell phone and PDA (personal digital assistant) on sale in the U.S. and Japan before the end of the year.

Cyberbank first unveiled its PC-Ephone at the Comdex show in Las Vegas last year. Looking like a wider version of a conventional PDA, the device was promised to ship in the U.S. in early 2001. The company missed the forecast shipping date but there is a bright side to its change in plans -- Cyberbank is now promising the device will retail for under $500 in the U.S. market, significantly cheaper than the $800 it forecast at Comdex in late 2000.

"We are planning to launch the PC-Ephone in Japan in October and in the U.S. before the end of the year," said Chae Jeong-Min, chief technical officer with Cyberbank Japan, a subsidiary company of the South Korean parent, in an interview at the Expo Comm Wireless Japan exhibition.

In Japan, the device will ship as a basic PDA with no cell phone function, said Chae, because the company considers the approval process required by cellular carrier KDDI to be too long and complicated. The removal of the cellular module will make it cheaper in Japan at around $400. A Compact Flash card slot enables users to insert a wireless modem to gain Internet access.

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In the U.S. the device will double as a cell phone and plans are on track for a launch with Verizon Communications Inc. and Sprint PCS Group, said Chae.

"We started final series approval with Verizon last month (June) and will start with Sprint this September," said Chae. The Verizon version will support CDMA (code division multiple access) and AMPS (American mobile phone service) while the Sprint version will support its U.S. PCS network.

In both markets the PC-Ephone will be targeted at vertical marketplace users. An online share trading service and Korean Air have already signed up to use the unit, as a dedicated wireless trading system and wireless guide for tourists visiting Korea respectively, and Chae hopes for more such deals in the future.

"We started with a focus on the consumer market but we have changed to business-to-business," he said, "because of the high price for consumers." Nevertheless, Chae says the PC-Ephone will be competitive with existing and recently launched PDAs. Not only is the $400 target price for Japan cheaper than Toshiba Corp.'s recently launched PDA and many others on the market but the PC-Ephone has a larger, higher resolution display.

The display, a 4-inch (10-centimeter), 256-color, Poly-Silicon TFT (thin film transistor) touch-panel display dominates the face of the device and provides a very sharp image with its 640 by 480 pixel (VGA) resolution. In comparison, Toshiba's new Genio features a 3.5 inch, 65,536 color, reflective TFT screen with 240 by 320 resolution and Sony's latest Clie PDA has a 65,536 color, frontlit TFT display with 320 by 320 pixel resolution.

The device is based on a 206MHz Intel StrongArm processor, has 32M bytes of main memory, USB (universal serial bus) and infrared IrDA interfaces and a type II Compact Flash card slot. The battery provides enough power for around two hours of wireless Web browsing.